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August 8, 2020

Hasbro's latest toy had a lot of parents very worried

By Andrea Widburg

A kids' movie, Trolls World Tour, opened online in April.  The venerable Hasbro toy company got a license to create troll dolls, including one in the image of the lead character, Poppy.  So far, so normal.

Things got really weird, though, when a mother discovered that there was a button between the doll's legs that, when pushed, caused the doll to let out giggles and little breathy squeals.  On Tuesday, she published a video describing what she found:

People who saw that video were disturbed enough to start a Change.org petition aimed at Target, Walmart, Amazon, Dollar General, and Family Dollar Stores.  The petition asked those stores to remove the doll from their shelves:

Our society is conditioning our children to think pedophilia is ok. This Trolls World Tour doll named Poppy has a button on her private area under her skirt. When you push this button on the doll's private she gasps and giggles. This is not okay for a child's toy! This toy needs to be removed from our stores. What will this toy make our innocent, impressionable children think? That it's fun when someone touches your private area? That pedophilia and child molestation are ok? It's not ok! It's not fun! It's damaging and has long term affects on a child's mental/physical health! Sign this petition to get this toy removed from shelves and help #SaveTheChildren! Children are our future and WE are their voice!

(As of this writing, which is within three days of the petition going up, it had almost 360,000 signatures.)

The Hasbro company was not slow to react.  One day after the video appeared and the petition went up, Hasbro announced that it was removing the doll from store shelves and would soon have a replacement doll available.  The company also tried to explain that very bizarre button:

"This feature was designed to react when the doll was seated, but we recognize the placement of the sensor may be perceived as inappropriate," Hasbro spokeswoman Julie Duffy said Wednesday afternoon in an email to The Providence Journal. "This was not intentional and we are happy to provide consumers with a replacement Poppy doll of similar value through our consumer care team. We are in the process of removing the item for purchase."

Absent any evidence that Hasbro has pedophiles designing its troll dolls, it's reasonable to take that statement at face value.  The company did something stupid, not evil.

Nevertheless, the woman who discovered the problem and the people who signed the petition are right that something is going on in the world when it comes to childhood innocence.  It's not just the Epstein scandal.  We've also all been aware of the Jimmy Saville scandal in England, which swept in its net people throughout the BBC and British government.

Parents have also been paying attention to how sexualized children are in advertising and the fashion world.  No one has missed the endless stream of stories about pedophiles in Hollywood (such as this story, for example).

A website called The Vigilant Citizen contends that the entertainment and fashion worlds are part of a devil-worshiping conspiracy that's controlling the world. It claims, too, that those in the conspiracy demonstrate their control through all sorts of symbols, such as a single eye in photographs or butterfly images.

Whether or not you accept the theory advanced at the site (I don't), any sane person is going to find disturbing the articles about high-end fashion lines or advertisements showing children symbolically sexualized or abused.  This is creepy stuff.  We all know it's out there, and to have a doll that makes orgasmic happy noises when you press a button between her legs is just wrong.

This also seems like a good time to remind people that when he's not locked in the basement, Joe Biden's behavior around little girls also has a very creepy vibe, so much so that someone was able to match videos of Biden with a completely unrelated lecture (that is, a lecture unrelated to Biden) in which the speaker talked about how predatory adults groom children:

One of the blessings of the modern Judeo-Christian world is its respect for the innocence of childhood.  Parents are right to be worried that people in positions of power over their children are destroying that innocence — and Hasbro was smart to back off instantly when people felt uncomfortable about that Poppy doll.

Image: Twitter screen grab.

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